Driver, Child Injured in Truck Accident on Highway 24 in Newport, NC

Newport, NC — July 5, 2024, a driver and a child were injured following a commercial truck accident at around 10:45 a.m. on Highway 24.

According to officials, the incident happened at the intersection with Hibbs Road south of town. Details suggest that an adult and a child were in an SUV which was going westbound through the Highway 24 and Hibbs intersection. At the light, authorities say that a waste truck making a left turn onto Hobbs failed to yield, resulting in a collision.

Due to the crash, the driver of the SUV and a child in the vehicle reportedly had serious injuries. There were no other confirmed injuries.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

Authorities say the truck driver was charged for failure to yield. As much as that could make this sound open-and-shut, the reality of commercial vehicle accidents is they’re rarely ever simple.

One particular reason an accident like this can be complex is a proper investigation needs to consider the role of the driver’s employer. I had a case a while back, for example, involving a truck driver who was texting and driving. As straight-forward as that was, we weren’t just going to settle for the easy answer without knowing the whole story. As it turned out, the driver was responding to his supervisor. This supervisor constantly texted and called drivers all day, micromanaging them and expecting immediate responses. This unreasonable boss of theirs didn’t care about safety or responsible driving. If drivers took too long to respond, they risked losing their job.

It was all but inevitable that kind of behavior would result in a driver looking at their phone when they shouldn’t, and it would cause an accident. While that’s just one example, it’s incredibly common for negligent employers to create environments which either coerce or encourage drivers to make reckless decisions they otherwise wouldn’t. If that’s something that led to this crash, as well, a charge for failure to yield on its own likely wouldn’t be enough to see there’s actually accountability for what happened here.